ANNAPOLIS — Maryland’s top budget committee ignored the pleas of county officials who said they couldn’t afford paying half the state’s teacher pension costs Wednesday, as proposed by Gov. Martin O’Malley in his fiscal 2013 budget.
Members of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee defended the proposal as necessary and common-sense at a hearing on the measure, while county officials called it “nasty,” “devastating” and “unacceptable.”
Maryland is one of only three states that pays 100 percent of teacher pensions, which will cost roughly $1 billion in fiscal 2013.
“In 47 other states, local governments make contributions [to teacher pensions],” said Sen. Richard Madaleno, D-Kensington. Why should Maryland be any different? he asked.
“We can’t accept [the proposal] simply because of our inability to adjust to it,” said Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett. “It will have a devastating impact on us.”
Queen Anne’s County Commission President Steve Arentz said it would “destroy” his county.
Several officials said they would be forced to raise property taxes to absorb the added burden.
Others warned that counties would start pulling funding from public safety and education to offset the costs.
“You create a piece of legislation like this with nasty teeth and sharp fangs and you will surely see counties unwilling to set the bar high in future years,” said Michael Sanderson, executive director of the Maryland Association of Counties.
But Republican and Democratic senators alike shrugged off the locals’ warnings.
“We can’t keep paying for it,” Sen. David R. Brinkley, R-Carroll and Frederick counties, said bluntly. “If this [shift] doesn’t happen then the promise [of pension benefits to teachers] has to be broken and the benefits have to be rescinded.”
County officials argued that the state is to blame for the ballooning teacher pension costs, which more than doubled between 2006 and 2011, and should therefore fix the problem without counties’ help.
Local boards of education, not county governments, have the power to set teacher salary and benefits levels, they argued.
But Madaleno swiftly rebuffed that argument.
“We face the same dynamic,” he said. “We don’t control a major driver of the cost of benefits.”
In the end, the state has a $1 billion budget shortfall to fill in fiscal 2013, and it can’t continue paying the full price of teacher pensions, he said. “We have to balance a budget.”
